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Belgian Grand Prix FP3 and Qualifying Report

"Tomorrow is another day – and we should be reasonably competitive if it rains"

Spa-Francorchamps, Saturday August 24

JENSON BUTTON, MP4-28A-04

FP3

13 laps

1m48.882s (+0.555s)

6th

Q1

(on Inters)

2m01.301s

6th

Q2

(on Options)

1m48.641s

5th

Q3

(on Inters)

2m03.075s

6th overall

"In the dry we were relatively happy with our pace, and in the wet I reckon it was a bit better still.

"I think P6 for us was an okay outcome, therefore. However, we’re still lacking a little bit compared with what we’d hoped for here, which shortfall we suspect is the result of an aero efficiency issue. We’ll have to analyse that thoroughly before Monza.

"But, going back to Spa, our timing was just a little bit off at the end of Q3, which enabled the top three guys to put in laps quicker than ours. Even so, the fact that there are three Brits in the top six is just great.

"Looking forward to tomorrow, if the weather is wet, or changeable, as we expect it to be, then things could get tricky for all the front-runners, because I think we’ve all used our supply of inters.

"Anyway, let’s see what happens. It should be an exciting race."

SERGIO PEREZ, MP4-28A-02

FP3

14 laps

1m49.417s (+1.090s)

16th

Q1

(on Inters)

2m02.425s

13th

Q2

(on Options)

1m49.304s

13th overall

Q3

-

-

-

"In tricky conditions like today’s you have to be in the right place at the right time, and it’s a pity we couldn’t optimise our potential by doing that, because on a wet track our car is pretty strong and we therefore had a very good opportunity to qualify well here this afternoon.

"So I’m a bit disappointed, of course, because we went out a bit too late and thereby lost the ‘window’, preventing us from being able to put in a lap that would have moved us through to Q3. It’s a pity, because the track was improving quickly at that time, and we’d have therefore been able to improve our lap time significantly.

"But that’s racing – and tomorrow is another day – and our car should be reasonably competitive if it rains. So I’ll try my best to make up for today’s disappointment by scoring some good points for the team tomorrow."

"In the portion of Q3 during which the track was wet, Jenson was the second-quickest driver out there – so, although P6 is a decent place from which to start, he would have been closer still to the sharp end of the grid had the rain persisted until the end of the session.

"Having said that, he did a great job and is well placed to drive a competitive race in tomorrow’s race, which we expect will be a wet one.

"Checo had an even more frustrating time of it this afternoon, missing the one-more-lap cut-off flag by a second or two at the end of Q2, else he too would have made it comfortably into Q3.

"Even so, like Jenson, I’m sure he’ll drive competitively tomorrow, using the likely wet conditions to his advantage in an effort to move through the field and score some valuable world championship points for us.

"So, overall, today was a bit frustrating for us from a number of perspectives, but our pace has been decent in the wet conditions that we expect tomorrow so we have reason to be guardedly optimistic about the race."